🇨🇺 Cuba · Central Cuba
Cayo Santa María is one of Cuba's great beach destinations: a cay of white sand and a turquoise sea on the north coast of Villa Clara, in the heart of the Jardines del Rey. Its long beaches with calm waters, its reefs for snorkeling and its bird-filled mangroves make it a Caribbean paradise, dotted with large all-inclusive hotel complexes that have turned it into a first-rate tourist hub.
Its hallmark is the accessibility of a pristine landscape: to get there you have to cross one of the longest causeways in the world, a road of about 48 kilometers raised over the sea between Caibarién and the cays, a spectacular experience in itself. Once there, the visitor finds kilometers of beach, water sports, diving outings and the tranquility of a destination designed for rest.
This guide covers the essentials of Cayo Santa María with a practical eye: which beaches and corners to enjoy, how to arrive via the causeway, what water activities to do, how to combine it with the charming colonial town of Remedios and with Santa Clara, and what to keep in mind when staying at its resorts. It's the ideal destination for anyone seeking a first-rate Caribbean beach a step away from Cuba's historic heart.
Cayo Santa María forms part of the Jardines del Rey archipelago, named in the 16th century by the conquistador Diego Velázquez in honor of King Ferdinand the Catholic. Like the rest of the cays of northern Cuba, it remained practically uninhabited for centuries: without fresh water or conditions for settlement, it was a refuge for birds, marine life and, at different times, fishermen, pirates and smugglers who took advantage of the labyrinth of mangroves and islets. Nearby Caibarién, on the mainland, developed as a fishing and sugar port, and the colonial town of Remedios, one of the oldest in Cuba, was for centuries the historic center of the region. The great change for the cay came in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, when Cuba developed sun-and-beach tourism in the Cayos de Villa Clara: the extensive causeway linking the cays with the mainland was built and the large all-inclusive resorts were raised that today make Cayo Santa María, together with Cayo Las Brujas and Cayo Ensenachos, one of the country's main beach destinations. That development, as with other cays, has generated debate over its impact on the fragile ecosystems of mangroves and reefs. The full history is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The province of Che and of the decisive battle of the Revolution: land of Santa Clara —the city of Marta Abreu and of the Heroic Guerrilla—, of the colonial town of Remedios and its World Heritage Parrandas, and of the white-sand cays of the north coast such as Cayo Santa María.
Read the history of Villa Clara →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
For almost five centuries, Cayo Santa María was a place to which no road led. A ribbon of white sand, mangroves and dunes several kilometers out to sea, without fresh water, without fixed inhabitants, barely visited by fishermen who dropped anchor among the islets. Today, by contrast, you arrive by car on a road laid over the sea and sleep in five-star resorts facing some of the best beaches in the Caribbean. That transformation —from a pristine, almost inaccessible spot to a first-rate tourist hub— fits into barely three decades, and is the true story of this cay.
Cayo Santa María lies at the western end of the Jardines del Rey, the great group of cays and islets that fringe the north-central coast of Cuba within the Sabana-Camagüey system. The archipelago was named in the early 16th century, during the conquest of the island: tradition attributes to the conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar the name 'Jardines del Rey' (King's Gardens), given in honor of King Ferdinand the Catholic.
In the sector corresponding to the present-day province of Villa Clara, Cayo Santa María forms a small group together with its neighbors Cayo Las Brujas and Cayo Ensenachos. They are cays of white sand, mangroves, inland lagoons and coral reefs, with a rich fauna of birds and marine life. Facing them, on the mainland, the colonial town of Remedios —one of the oldest in Cuba— and, later, the port of Caibarién developed over the course of history. These two centers would be the historic gateways to the region and, centuries later, the starting point of the causeway that would open the cays to tourism.
For most of its history, Cayo Santa María and the neighboring cays remained uninhabited. Without fresh water or farmland, they were not suited to permanent settlement, but they were frequented by fishermen, gatherers and, at different times, by vessels that took advantage of the labyrinth of mangroves and islets. Like much of the Caribbean, northern Cuba also had its era of pirates and smugglers who made use of these hidden spots.
The region's human life was concentrated on the mainland. The town of San Juan de los Remedios (Remedios), one of the first founded in Cuba, was for centuries the historic, religious and cultural center of the territory, famous for its colonial old town and for its Parrandas, one of the oldest folk festivals in the country. By the 19th and 20th centuries, the nearby port of Caibarién developed as a fishing and export point for the area's sugar production.
Thus, while culture and history flourished in Remedios and Caibarién, the cays of northern Villa Clara remained a world apart: wild, pristine and little-traveled, a landscape of dunes, mangroves and beaches that only much later, well into the 20th and early 21st centuries, would fully join the country's economic life through tourism.
The event that completely changed Cayo Santa María's destiny was the construction of the Caibarién causeway, one of the longest roads over the sea in the world. The first stone touched the salt water on December 15, 1989, months after Fidel Castro toured the northern cays of Villa Clara, in September of that year, and decided to open the cays by land. The work, carried out by the 'Campaña de Las Villas' contingent, advanced in the midst of the Special Period crisis: the two construction fronts —one from Caibarién and another from Cayo Las Brujas— met on December 15, 1994, and the bridge and elevation works were completed in February 1999. The result is a road of about 48 kilometers laid over the waters, linking the port of Caibarién with the northern cays of Villa Clara (Las Brujas, Ensenachos and Santa María) and awarded the Alcántara Bridge prize for the best Ibero-American civil engineering work (1998-2000 edition).
The work was an engineering feat that allowed, for the first time, land access to cays until then isolated, opening the door to their tourist development. But, as happened with other causeways built on Cuba's north coast, it also raised environmental concern: the barrier of the road altered the natural circulation of water between the open sea and the inner areas, with effects on the mangroves, the lagoons and the coastal ecosystems. Culverts and bridges were introduced to mitigate the impact, and the balance between development and conservation has been a matter of debate ever since.
Beyond the controversy, the causeway transformed the geography and economy of the region. It turned the simple transfer into a spectacular scenic experience —the sea opening on both sides during nearly an hour of travel— and made it possible for a pristine corner of the Cuban Caribbean to become one of the country's main sun-and-beach destinations.
With access solved by the causeway, Cayo Santa María and the neighboring cays experienced, especially from the early 21st century, an accelerated tourist development. Cuba bet on turning the Northern Cays of Villa Clara into a first-rate sun-and-beach hub, raising large all-inclusive resorts facing the beaches, along with marinas, dive centers and a leisure and shopping complex (the cay's 'Plaza').
The destination quickly positioned itself among the main ones in Cuba, attracting international travelers in search of white sand beaches and turquoise waters. The proximity to the colonial town of Remedios and to the city of Santa Clara —with Che Guevara's mausoleum— added a cultural value that sets these cays apart from other more isolated beach destinations, allowing you to combine Caribbean rest with the history and culture of the center of the island.
Today, Cayo Santa María is an emblem of Cuban beach tourism. Its history sums up well the transformation of many cays in the country: from a pristine, uninhabited and almost inaccessible spot for centuries, to a first-rate tourist destination in barely a few decades, with the permanent challenge of preserving the fragile ecosystems of mangroves, dunes and reefs that constitute, ultimately, its greatest wealth. The region's history is completed by that of Remedios, Caibarién and Villa Clara province.
The great cultural counterweight to Cayo Santa María is on the mainland, a few kilometers from the end of the causeway: San Juan de los Remedios, founded in the early 16th century and considered the eighth town of Cuba. Its colonial old town of low houses, its stately square and its two churches facing each other —among them the Parroquial Mayor, with its famous main altar covered in gold leaf— make Remedios one of the most charming historic ensembles in the center of the island, and explain why the excursion from the cay's resorts is almost obligatory.
But Remedios is, above all, the cradle of the Parrandas, the oldest folk festival in Cuba. Its origin dates back to around 1820, when —according to tradition— the priest Francisco Vigil de Quiñones came up with the idea of having some children roam the early mornings of December making noise with cans and whistles to wake the neighbors and take them to the Christmas Masses. That nocturnal din turned, over the years, into a spectacular competition between two neighborhoods of the town —El Carmen and San Salvador—, which each December rival each other in monumental floats, lanterns, plaza works and, above all, a colossal display of fireworks that lights up the sky of Remedios. In 2018 the Parrandas of the central region of Cuba were declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
That proximity to Remedios, to the university city of Santa Clara —with the Ernesto Che Guevara mausoleum— and to the port of Caibarién is what sets Cayo Santa María apart from other more isolated beach destinations: it allows you to combine, in a single trip, Caribbean rest facing the turquoise sea with centuries of history, colonial architecture and one of the most dazzling festive traditions in Latin America.